The house that Jack built

[Michael Hoover]

> Michael Perelman wrote:
> > I thought that a GE, vp., Bulwer (sp?), was the bulwark of anti-union 
> activity during the 50s and maybe early 60s.
> 
> I vaguely remember a whole book on the history of GE's piorneering in 
> anti-union strategy and tactics. The memory is vague, but I did pick up 
> from somewhere that GE for nearly a century has been a real leader in 
> anti union activity. Welch merely carried on company tradition.
> Carrol

Among other things, GE:
*funded 'free enterprise' exhibits, films, literature & school programs

 by early 1940s
*spearheaded post-WW2 Ad Council anti-union 'economic education' campaign
*set up plant-based supervisor-employee 'human relations' programs

 to compete with union stewards for worker allegiance
*ran 'public service' ads warning of dangers to 'individual freedom' of

 welfare state & communism
*established in-plant economic education' and 'worker recreation' programs
*attempted to build 'company consciousness' via non-collective bargaining

 benefits & profit-sharing
*established 'community relations' programs
*hired Ronnie Raygun to host TV program and give anti-labor/anti-state talk

 (singular since he gave same one for 30+ yrs) around country,
*was first major corporation to back 1958 California right-to-work

 proposal (and actively supported similar efforts in Colorado, Idaho,

 Kansas, Ohio & Washington)

See:
Ronald Schatz, _The Electrical Workers: A History of Labor at General

 Electric & Westinghouse, 1923-60_, University of Illinois Press, 1983
Elizabeth A. Fones-Wolf, _Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault

 on Labor & Liberalism, 1945-60_, University of Illinois Press, 1994 

Michael Hoover